Istanbul’s location on the Bosporus has been vital to the Byzantine and Ottoman Empire as well as the modern state of Turkey. This is one of those crucial chokepoints of global commerce like the Straits of Malacca, and the demands on both of these natural waterways will soon exceed their capacity. Thailand is working on the Thai canal to relieve the pressures on the Straits of Malacca (and enrich themselves in the process); Nicaragua is also seeking to create an alternative to the Panama Canal which is in the process of expanding their locks to accommodate the massive container ships.

Istanbul is likewise looking to find other ways the keep their locational advantage as the gateway to the Black Sea region and beyond. Projects on this grand of a scale have tremendous real estate, trading, transportation and even tourism impacts. They can also bring negative impacts to the local water supply, wildlife, other environmental concerns. The bigger the project, the bigger the environmental risks and the greater the economic rewards.

“We offer a variety of resources on U.S. Export/Import Trade with the World with millions of free datasets.” Source: U.S. Trade Numbers

This data visualization tool is very reminiscent of the Atlas of Economic Complexity. While the Atlas of Economic Complexity is better for exploring global trade patterns, this site adds a local impact to the global economy. Users can explore the major port of entries and see what goods are entering or leaving the United States from particular cities as nodes in global transportation networks. The permeability of borders are an economic necessity to take advantage of the economies of scale.

Walkable cities improve the local economy and many cities are working to improve their walkability. Cities can improve sidewalks, decrease parking lots, beautify storefronts and add other amenities that encourage walking. Neighborhoods that are very walkable often have a vibrant sense of place. This article (and the embedded video) nicely explain many issues surrounding walkable urban environments.

This is a good article about the critical nature of transportation infrastructure to a growing city in the developing world. More important than this one article, I want to highlight the entire Guardian series entitled "The Next 15 Megacities."

In 1975 there were only 3 megacities (cities population over 10 million) in the world. Today there are 33 megacities and by 2035, there are expected to be 48. This acceleration is one of the more astounding and important facts about how the world is changing today. This series explores these emerging megacities that will have over 10 million by 2035; overwhelmingly these cities are in Asia.

"Investing in walkable cities, whether through allocating funds to repaint pedestrian walkways or building affordable housing close to downtowns, also attracts diverse populations and creates jobs. According to the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, 63 percent of millennials and 42 percent of boomers would like to live in a place where they don’t need a car. And according to the National Association of Realtors, 62 percent of millennials prefer to live in a walkable community where a car is optional. If cities seem less automobile-dependent, chances are they are more appealing to a range of ages."

Walkable cities improve the local economy and many cities are working to improve their walkability. Cities can improve sidewalks, decrease parking lots, beautify storefronts and add other amenities that encourage walking. Neighborhoods that are very walkable often have a vibrant sense of place. This article (and the embedded video) nicely explain many issues surrounding walkable urban environments.

"China’s urbanization is a marvel. The population of its cities has quintupled over the past 40 years, reaching 813m. By 2030 roughly one in five of the world’s city-dwellers will be Chinese. But this mushrooming is not without its flaws. Restraining pell-mell urbanization may sound like a good thing, but it worries the government’s economists, since bigger cities are associated with higher productivity and faster economic growth. Hence a new plan to remake the country’s map.

The idea is to foster the rise of mammoth urban clusters, anchored around giant hubs and containing dozens of smaller, but by no means small, nearby cities. The plan calls for 19 clusters in all, which would account for nine-tenths of economic activity (see map). China would, in effect, condense into a country of super-regions."

This type of plan would have been politically and economically unthinkable in years past, but the time-space compression (convergence) has made the distances between cities less of a barrier. High-speed transit in the form of bullet trains link cities to other cities within the cluster more tightly together and the threshold of the functional region expands. While some of these clusters are more aspirational, the top three (Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing) are already powerful global forces.

A group of influential Thai officials is promoting the construction of a long-envisioned megaproject, known as the Thai Canal. If built, it would transform the regional maritime dynamics and give Thailand a substantial stake in global trade. Yet, as ambitious as the project it, there are equally credible drawbacks that could reshape the geo-economic fortunes of Southeast Asia.

The Straits of Malacca is an incredibly busy waterway. Around 20% of global trade and 30% of the world’s crude oil travel through this tiny choke point. At its narrowest, the Straits of Malacca is less than 2 miles wide and as Asian economies grow, alternative shipping lanes are becoming more attractive. China is looking to bankroll a canal that would bisect the Malay Peninsula and reduce their dependency on the Straits of Malacca. This is still uncertain, but would represent a major geo-engineering project that

Perspectives: What are the positives and negatives of this plan for Thailand? China? The United States?

“It might be a strip of sand without even a jetty but a small stretch of the Pacific coast now harbors Bolivia’s dream of regaining a coast and becoming a maritime nation. The landlocked Andean country has won access to a desolate patch of Peru’s shoreline, fueling hopes that Bolivia will once again have a sea to call its own. President Evo Morales signed a deal yesterday with his Peruvian counterpart, Alan García, allowing Bolivia to build and operate a small port about 10 miles from Peru’s southern port of Ilo. The accord, sealed with declarations of South American brotherhood, was a diplomatic poke at Chile, the neighbor that seized Bolivia’s coast and a swath of Peruvian territory in the 1879-84 war of the Pacific.”

Apps like Waze, Google Maps, and Apple Maps may make traffic conditions worse in some areas, new research suggests.

In the pre-mobile-app days, drivers’ selfishness was limited by their knowledge of the road network. In those conditions, both simulation and real-world experience showed that most people stuck to the freeways and arterial roads. When there are more app-using drivers, congestion builds up at off-ramps, creating more traffic on the freeway. While it’s clear that traffic on local roads gets worse with the use of these apps, Bayen said that nobody has managed to do a multi-scale analysis that can determine if the apps, even if they create local problems, are better or worse for whole traffic basins.